Compliance and goldilocks

Ceramics

Remember ignore-me girl? She’s had so much personal growth over this past week and we are getting my along wonderfully. What a change! It’s been a good weekend, no tension, at least not with her and the other patients. We went to ceramics for our Saturday program. It was fun and ignore-me girl discovered she really liked ceramics. She didn’t finish her project and asked me if we could come back on Sunday. This is a project I finished a few days before. It’s dry brushed.

Triggers

Saturday night I had an argument with the support supervisor where we live. Ugh, I hate when my emotions run away with me. The good thing is I didn’t let it effect eating dinner and evening snack. I think I discovered a new way I could deal with or express my emotions. Someone had lent me some reusable modeling clay. I sat in my room, pulled out the red, and made an angry face. Then I made a blue sad face and grey confused face. I have a hard time figuring out what I feel, especially verbally. It’s like I have a disconnect between my emotions and rational thought. Actually, according to my therapist, there really is a physical disconnect in people with PTSD, so there you go. I am a tactile person though so somehow I was able to express how I feel by doing something instead of thinking of something. Anyway, I didn’t want to sit in the negative emotions so I made a happy face with yellow. Surprisingly I felt better!

This past week more people were admitted. Two are clearly on weight gain protocol. One person is severely underweight. For the first time it didn’t trigger me as much as usual. Of course I feel huge but I’m not on weight gain. I had lost weight before I came in but my nutritionist is honoring my desire to stay at the weight I was when I discharged last time. I had gained weight, above that number, when I left last time because the other nutritionist had doubled my meal plan, grrrrr. Anyway, I looked at her and ignore-me girl and was thankful I didn’t have to deal with all those issues too. I had awful memories from 2013 when I had to gain a huge amount of weight. Thank you but no… Ignore-me girl was admitted the same day as me and when I saw her, I felt like an utter failure because of my size. No matter how many people tell me I’m small, I just can’t believe it. I guess I’m healing?

Visit

Sunday my ranch friend came to visit me. I found out later she has never just jumped in to a car, driven a long distance, to see someone so this was a big deal for her too. She drove a little over 2 1/2 hours just to see me. I still don’t know how to manage whatever it is that I’m feeling. Maybe I ought to use the clay! Whatever that feeling is, it feels good. Went went to a coffee shop/artisan food place for lunch. I had something as close to my meal plan as possible. I’m sure it was more protein than I need but I ate the whole thing. I didn’t even leave a piece of crust. I felt like if I did that it would be easier the next time to leave off more. We didn’t bother going anywhere else. It was great to just keep talking, and we did, about everything. Eventually I had my snack which was hard because she wasn’t eating anything but I did (another trigger). We moved to an outside table and at dinner time, did that. I went way out of my comfort zone but managed it. I took a picture to show my nutritionist to see if it was a normal meal. The thing I kept saying to myself when I felt those familiar thoughts telling me I didn’t really need that much, that going out was challenge enough and my nutritionist would understand, was “you’ve lost the privilege to make those decisions.” It may seem like a negative to some people but it isn’t to me. It puts it in context and keeps me humble.

Results

This weekend was a success! I stayed compliant through everything. I do have a wee bit more confidence, not as much as I thought I would, but I’ll take what I can get. I know it will be way harder when I leave but at least I have this moment. My next challenge will be next weekend when I get a pass to go home but it isn’t Friday yet. Today is Tuesday so I will focus on today.

Discharge

My upcoming discharge, next Tuesday, 12 Sept, is starting to sink in. I’m feeling nervous and working hard at staying present but I have to say, it’s not easy. My friend from the ranch shared her observation of me before I came. She said she was scared, that I didn’t look like I’d make it… wow. I told her to remind me of that if I seem off because I simply don’t remember.

And finally, Goldilocks

Big Pete’s hair had somehow curled around his fly mask and ended up looking like this. He’s a big brute of a horse which makes it even funnier. He reminds me of those guys in Monty Python who would put on a woman’s wig and pretend to be a girl. Too funny!!!